大象传媒

Our resident blogger, Bob Stanley, interviews the legendary drummer about the early years of his career.

I was passing through Stockton-on-Tees the other day and, as happens on these rare occasions, came into my head. The whistle-led country tune was on the b-side of their 1962 number one Wonderful Land. I never questioned the title for yours, until one day I twigged it was probably a play on the jazz standard Stars Fell On Alabama, and so joined the Shads's list of punning titles like Alice In Sunderland (which, incidentally, was my destination last week).

As a kid, the ' rhythm guitarist Bruce Welch had helped out on his grandmother's Stockton market stall, which may account for the chirpiness of Stars Fell On Stockton. But when I met Shadows drummer Brian Bennett a few years ago, his memories of the town were less than starry.

While the next generation of groups were learning their chops in Hamburg, The Shadows were suffering in Stockton, doing a stint in panto. "Two or three months we were there" Brian told me. "The Globe Theatre. It snowed, it was freezing. We were in digs. Margaret my wife was expecting. I remember coming down to breakfast one morning and the landlady's son kept sniffing and cockling. Margaret felt so bad she just collapsed and her head fell into her bowl of porridge, and it splattered everywhere. I said 'we've got to get out of this place', but we couldn't afford to. We were very unhappy.

"I hated panto. Getting thrown threw a mangle by Arthur Askey every afternoon wasn't what I'd had in mind when I started drumming. We did as we were told. Then, of course, came along and changed the rules."